Audiobooks have begun to outsell print

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HarryT

2. Listen to it, and mark any errors.
3. Get your voice artist back into the studio to re-record the sentences with errors in them.
4. Edit the re-recorded sections into the book at the correct points.

Seriously, I listen to a lot of books with egregious mispronunciations (non-fiction, major publishers, etc.). I only wish this were part of the process!

I'm still shuddering at the biography of John Quincy Adams where the word "quay" was pronounced "kway." No, I'm not making that up. And it's not even as if the narrator got it wrong once and someone clued him in so he could fix it subsequently. It was consistent throughout the book.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by issybird

Seriously, I listen to a lot of books with egregious mispronunciations (non-fiction, major publishers, etc.). I only wish this were part of the process!

That is how it works with reputable publishers. The reason I know is that a friend of mine, an American actress who now lives in the UK, does a lot of audiobook work, and she's told me how it works. She's done a lot of fiction audiobooks for Audible.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

That article has a clickbait title but it also has a couple useful nuggets of info.

I took that article apart and put it back together to make the point that when an audiobook is treated as an original production, and not just a recitation of a novel, the audiobook can outsell the print edition.
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/1...s-they-havent/

One of the authors mentioned in that article writes his novels with a certain narrator in mind. He writes for that narrator's voice and style, and that trick sells a lot of audiobooks.

Recording audio versus how you might "write" it really are two different things. When I played around with recording the short stories, I definitely wanted to "rewrite" for audio. The only problem with that is that for an indie, Amazon doesn't allow that. In order for the audio to be accepted the book must follow 99 percent of the audio so that Amazon's whispersync works. This is actually a shame because you can do a lot with audio that you wouldn't necessarily want to do with the written work. You can add expressions such as shock, laughter, a door slamming--and then you don't need those exact words spoken.

Amazon controls a great deal of the audio market so I am not sure whether there will be innovative recordings if their rules for whispersync continue to dictate how an audio book is "read."

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by issybird

Seriously, I listen to a lot of books with egregious mispronunciations (non-fiction, major publishers, etc.). I only wish this were part of the process!

I'm still shuddering at the biography of John Quincy Adams where the word "quay" was pronounced "kway." No, I'm not making that up. And it's not even as if the narrator got it wrong once and someone clued him in so he could fix it subsequently. It was consistent throughout the book.

Some publishers put more into the audio than others. Someone has to "listen" to the recording and like editing, sometimes that gets sloppy. It could also be that whoever did the listening didn't know how to pronounce it.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'd be very surprised if it's as little as 3h work per 1h of recorded output - I'd expect something more like double that. You need to:

1. Do your initial recording.
2. Listen to it, and mark any errors.
3. Get your voice artist back into the studio to re-record the sentences with errors in them.
4. Edit the re-recorded sections into the book at the correct points.
5. Listen to it again to make sure it's OK.
5. Do any digital processing required (noise reduction, digital marking of chapter breaks, etc.)

Given that at least three of those processes are "real time", it's got to take more than a 3:1 ratio.

The voice artist does the initial listen for obvious mistakes, so that part doesn't necessarily involve waiting on another person to listen. It's about double time for the reading. The way I did it was to record x hours/minutes, listen, re-record. For me that was 3 times that of a finished hour, but I did get better at it. There were times when my husband (who was doing digital processing) would find areas that required re-recording--sometimes for a mispronounced word, sometimes because I swallowed the end of a word, once because I set my water glass too close to the mic and the resulting "earthquake" took too long to settle.)

As I got better at recording, I could actually catch the mistakes as I made them and just read the sentence again. Deleting the old sentence was quick and easy on a first listen. We did one session where my husband listened as I read and he'd stop me to re-read. That was the fastest because he'd hear things I couldn't. He'd stop me, I'd reread and we'd continue. Later, we'd delete the sentence/word that was a problem. Deleting is always the fastest operation!

We tried a lot of different things and I"m sure a pro recording artist has a streamlined process. The engineering time varied. In one case, we wanted to add some enhancement to one of the voices (there's all kinds of things you can do--reverb, changes in pitch, etc) and that meant several readings.

After doing various short stories, we decided that two voices were definitely better than one (at least one male and one female). But then the acting ability varies and keeping separate and distinct female voices for each character (and also for the male parts) was VERY difficult. I'd record one day and forget how I did the Dragon voice. I found myself wanting to record longer sessions to keep the various voices in sync.

I chatted with some pros before we did this. Recording with multiple voices is ideal--but it's also the most expensive. Each artist has to be paid. Then there's a production guy who has to make it all come together. Then it goes for sale and everyone wants a cut. Amazon takes 65 percent of indie work (it's almost opposite that of ebooks when it comes to commissions.) Amazon requires exclusivity to get a 60/40 split--for SEVEN years.

If you want to help artists and authors, buy audio books direct when you can. Full Cast Audio is one of the outfits that was kind enough to chat with me about audio:

https://www.facebook.com/fullcastaudio/?fref=ts

(They have a website too, but I think there's a freebie running right now on the FB page so I linked to there. It's via iTunes and it may have expired.)

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is how it works with reputable publishers. The reason I know is that a friend of mine, an American actress who now lives in the UK, does a lot of audiobook work, and she's told me how it works. She's done a lot of fiction audiobooks for Audible.

I do know that's how it's supposed to work. I'm talking about major books, reputable publishers and so forth and I still find that quality control frequently leaves a lot to be desired. Some books much more so than others; many books have the polish you'd expect, but the exceptions are not few, alas.

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Some publishers put more into the audio than others. Someone has to "listen" to the recording and like editing, sometimes that gets sloppy. It could also be that whoever did the listening didn't know how to pronounce it.

There are two types of errors I find unforgivable: mispronouncing ordinary words and mispronouncing proper nouns which are clearly tricky. Find out! The most understandable is when the proper noun has an aberrant pronunciation that isn't obvious. Two I've run across are Lady Mary Coke and Elbridge Gerry.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by issybird

I do know that's how it's supposed to work. I'm talking about major books, reputable publishers and so forth and I still find that quality control frequently leaves a lot to be desired. Some books much more so than others; many books have the polish you'd expect, but the exceptions are not few, alas.



There are two types of errors I find unforgivable: mispronouncing ordinary words and mispronouncing proper nouns which are clearly tricky. Find out! The most understandable is when the proper noun has an aberrant pronunciation that isn't obvious. Two I've run across are Lady Mary Coke and Elbridge Gerry.

I understand what you are saying, but I also know how difficult it is to know the pronunciation of even fairly common words. I'm college educated and I read voraciously, which means I'm exposed to a large vocabulary--of SILENT words. My husband STILL finds words--these are not necessarily rare words--that I mispronounced. Cavalry was one. I've heard it wrong more than right and so I read it wrong. There's other words that I just never hear (I don't watch TV and when I do, it's sports without the sound turned on). So I tend to pronounce phonetically. French words in particular give me a very hard time. I had a devil of a time saying "Snitched, Snatched" without garbling it. (Never will I name a story anything like that again! The two s words together were like one big slurring for me.)

It's not to say we don't need to practice and look things up, but in at least 3 cases, I THOUGHT I was saying the words right. It isn't that I was unsure, it was simply that I'd read them enough and thought I knew. Some people also have a better ear/learning for languages (my husband being one) so he catches things on a listen. I'm sure that the pros have various levels of "listeners" who have varying degrees of education. My attention tends to wander when listening to things so I'm not a good "proof reader" for listening. I'm guessing the pros don't always luck out and get good listeners for the audio and it's far too expensive to re-record something that has already been released and engineered because of three or six words that are wrong. If there comes a time when it's less expensive to do recordings (or redo them) I think the quality will go up. But as it is, I think we'll actually see the quality go down as more outfits get into doing it on a budget.

I've followed various indie threads and they have had some horrible recordings turned in as finished. If done through Amazon, the LEAST the author can get away with paying is for half of it (because once you agree to the initial 15-30 minute sample, you are out half the money regardless of the rest of the recording). So as this growth continues, the quality level is going to increase in some areas (where people get innovative and use different voice actors in a single book or add sound effects, etc) and it's going to decrease in others (where the hiring field gets larger and the talent varies. Just like with artists and cover work--there is more work to go around, but that doesn't mean every artist hired can do the genre or has the talent to complete a cover in a timely and professional manner.)

Those who have a good ear will suffer the most from mispronunciations!

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by issybird

Seriously, I listen to a lot of books with egregious mispronunciations (non-fiction, major publishers, etc.). I only wish this were part of the process!

I'm still shuddering at the biography of John Quincy Adams where the word "quay" was pronounced "kway." No, I'm not making that up. And it's not even as if the narrator got it wrong once and someone clued him in so he could fix it subsequently. It was consistent throughout the book.

This is one of the words I would have mispronounced and not known it (Although in this case I would have looked it up because I don't know what it means.) Now, it may be because I'm a dummy, but I prefer to view it as: Depends on where you are from, your life experiences and what you've been exposed to. Voice actors are often VERY good at what they do--act, read and entertain. But they may not have the exposure to as many words (or the same words) as the author who wrote the book. Those publishing it may cut corners and not listen to the finished book or they may listen but not know how to pronounce the words either!

I've taught English as a second language and I can promise you that even in that environment, the students use very different English words--not always the easiest one either. Some of it can depend on their original language (Spanish versus Japanese, the two I've taught to the most).

Language is a very powerful tool. Communication, however, is often magic.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I understand what you are saying, but I also know how difficult it is to know the pronunciation of even fairly common words. I'm college educated and I read voraciously, which means I'm exposed to a large vocabulary--of SILENT words. My husband STILL finds words--these are not necessarily rare words--that I mispronounced. Cavalry was one. I've heard it wrong more than right and so I read it wrong. There's other words that I just never hear (I don't watch TV and when I do, it's sports without the sound turned on). So I tend to pronounce phonetically. French words in particular give me a very hard time. I had a devil of a time saying "Snitched, Snatched" without garbling it. (Never will I name a story anything like that again! The two s words together were like one big slurring for me.)

It's not to say we don't need to practice and look things up, but in at least 3 cases, I THOUGHT I was saying the words right. It isn't that I was unsure, it was simply that I'd read them enough and thought I knew. Some people also have a better ear/learning for languages (my husband being one) so he catches things on a listen. I'm sure that the pros have various levels of "listeners" who have varying degrees of education. My attention tends to wander when listening to things so I'm not a good "proof reader" for listening. I'm guessing the pros don't always luck out and get good listeners for the audio and it's far too expensive to re-record something that has already been released and engineered because of three or six words that are wrong. If there comes a time when it's less expensive to do recordings (or redo them) I think the quality will go up. But as it is, I think we'll actually see the quality go down as more outfits get into doing it on a budget.

I've followed various indie threads and they have had some horrible recordings turned in as finished. If done through Amazon, the LEAST the author can get away with paying is for half of it (because once you agree to the initial 15-30 minute sample, you are out half the money regardless of the rest of the recording). So as this growth continues, the quality level is going to increase in some areas (where people get innovative and use different voice actors in a single book or add sound effects, etc) and it's going to decrease in others (where the hiring field gets larger and the talent varies. Just like with artists and cover work--there is more work to go around, but that doesn't mean every artist hired can do the genre or has the talent to complete a cover in a timely and professional manner.)

Those who have a good ear will suffer the most from mispronunciations!

In defense of Maria, even on TV sometimes people will mishear words.
Pronouncing clearly is an art form.
Example being hearing midlife for MetLife. I kept wondering why that stadium was middle aged.

[HarryT]

Until I started listening to audiobooks I was unaware that British and American English pronounce, as well as spell, so many words differently. A lot of words are pronounced completely differently even if they're spelt the same. One example is the word "buoy" (as in a floating marker in a harbour or at sea). In the UK, the word is pronounced the same as the word "boy", but in one book by an American narrator, he pronounced it "boo-ee". I don't know if that's the standard American pronunciation, or if he just didn't know how to say the word? Another one which always strikes me as strange is that American narrators say the word "shone" the same as the word "shown", whereas in British English, "shone" has a short "o".

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

In defense of Maria, even on TV sometimes people will mishear words.
Pronouncing clearly is an art form.
Example being hearing midlife for MetLife. I kept wondering why that stadium was middle aged.

We had company last night and our friend was telling me that he was telling his wife about the Hawkeyes (Iowa Football, I believe) game. Later, his high school daughter asked her mom/his wife 'Which college had all the hot guys on the team.' Guess she was hoping to apply there... I know I would have been at that age!!

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Until I started listening to audiobooks I was unaware that British and American English pronounce, as well as spell, so many words differently. A lot of words are pronounced completely differently even if they're spelt the same. One example is the word "buoy" (as in a floating marker in a harbour or at sea). In the UK, the word is pronounced the same as the word "boy", but in one book by an American narrator, he pronounced it "boo-ee". I don't know if that's the standard American pronunciation, or if he just didn't know how to say the word? Another one which always strikes me as strange is that American narrators say the word "shone" the same as the word "shown", whereas in British English, "shone" has a short "o".

Yes, he pronounced it correctly.
Now as far as American pronunciations go, there are also regional pronunciations.
A New Yorker sounds much different from a Texan and there are at least 6 different dialects just in Texas.

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Audiobooks are easily 2-4 times the price of the paper equivalent.

Audible sent me an email about a pretty good sale that's currently going on. Good prices...

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

In order for the audio to be accepted the book must follow 99 percent of the audio so that Amazon's whispersync works. This is actually a shame because you can do a lot with audio that you wouldn't necessarily want to do with the written work. You can add expressions such as shock, laughter, a door slamming--and then you don't need those exact words spoken.

A book I listened to recently had a funny instance where the voice actor egregiously mispronounced a common word in a character's dialog. I was mentally tut-tutting at such shocking ineptitude, but a few sentences later the second character remarked on the mispronunciation, which I then realized had been deliberate.

Originally Posted by issybird

I'm still shuddering at the biography of John Quincy Adams where the word "quay" was pronounced "kway." No, I'm not making that up. And it's not even as if the narrator got it wrong once and someone clued him in so he could fix it subsequently. It was consistent throughout the book.

Well, in the narrator's defense, it is an alternate pronunciation, per Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary:

Main Entry: quay
Pronunciation: 'kē, 'kā, 'kwā

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Well, in the narrator's defense, it is an alternate pronunciation, per Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary:

Indeed, I seldom use the other two.